Fellows, start a day like that--honestly--and _you cannot fail_!

_Read Matthew 22:15-46._

IX

LOYALTY

Say, fellows, what is the most loyal thing you ever did? I should like to know. Was it when you waded into a big bully who was licking your little brother, and took the drubbing yourself? Or was it when some fellows accused you of being tied to your mother's ap.r.o.n strings, and you flashed back at them: "Yes, and she is the finest mother a boy ever had!" Or was it when you sat up all night in a coach on a railroad trip to root for your team next day on the enemy's field?

I heard of a British boy in Flanders who was brought back of the lines for surgical treatment, and when they opened his shirt they found tattooed on his breast the words: _For My King!_ I read of a French lad whose arm had to be amputated at the shoulder, having been shattered by a German sh.e.l.l. When he regained consciousness, the surgeon, moved with deep sympathy, said, "Oh, my poor boy, I am so sorry you lost your arm!" The boy's eyes snapped as he answered: "Lost! No, don't say that; I _gave_ it to France!"

Each one of you fellows has a tremendous capacity for being loyal to some thing, some principle, or _somebody_. It is a costly part of your make-up, because it will cause you to make sacrifice. What are you choosing as the object of your loyalty?

Fellows, I want to offer you King Jesus as the One upon whom you can spend your loyalty to the limit. There is none like Him. He is the chief among ten thousand. When He gives you a task He gives you at the same time the power to do it. When He sends you to men, He opens the hearts of those to whom you are sent. You can undertake anything for King Jesus without fear, no matter how difficult or how impossible the task may seem.

Why, fellows, think of those two disciples going after that colt for Jesus their King to ride upon! He sent them for it. The beast belonged to some one else, yet they were to untie it and bring it. If the owner objected, all they were to say was: "The Lord hath need of him." That would settle it. They brought it as directed. That was faith, and that was loyalty.

To-day King Jesus wants messengers--not to send out for a.s.ses, but into the haunts of sin for lost men and women; and into the social, commercial, and industrial world to present His claims. Some, hearing the call, are answering, "But how do I know I will succeed in that sort of business? Will I be contented in such work? Will it pay? Will it keep me in a comfortable living? Will men come when I tell them?"

Listen, fellows, King Jesus says: "All power is given unto me--Go!--and lo, I am with you alway!" That is sufficient, it is the King's own word for it; and here is the place where you can exercise your priceless loyalty to the limit, and never know a moment's regret. The King Himself goes with you.

The loyal servants of King Jesus never have to root for a losing game; victory is a.s.sured from the beginning.

_Read Mark 11:1-11._

X

A GOOD SPORT

Say, fellows, I overheard a remark the other day as I pa.s.sed a bunch of boys down on the corner. One of the boys was saying, "Oh, he's a good sport, all right," and I wondered just what that boy thought it took to make a good sport. About that time one of the boys whom I knew pulled out of the crowd and coming my way overtook me, so I asked him who was the "good sport" the fellows were talking about.

"Why," he said, "it was Jim Love; when he was in the two-mile cross-country foot race the other day, with a good chance of getting ahead of Tom Locke, who won it, Jim stopped long enough to help a guy across a footlog with a sack of potatoes or something--and even then came in just a few yards behind Tom. He would have won, but for that stop; but he said the old man looked as if he was about to fall off the footlog. Tom saw it, too, but he waded the creek and got a better lead on Jim."

It did me good to think of those fellows cla.s.sing Jim up as "a good sport," after I knew what had happened. They had the right idea. I believe our Lord would have called Jim a good sport, too, if He had been telling the boys of to-day about it, because the Christ spirit in a fellow is what makes him a "good sport" in the highest sense. Once when a proud Pharisee was trying to trap our Lord with a "catch question," Jesus answered him with a story very much like that which made the boys call Jim Love a good sport.

The Pharisee asked Jesus, "Who is my neighbour?" and Jesus told him about the Good Samaritan. A man was travelling from Jerusalem down the rough mountain road to Jericho, and was attacked by bandits, beaten, robbed, and left lying beside the road half dead. A priest came along, but he was in a hurry; he had important religious duties awaiting him, and besides, that fellow looked as if he was in bad and it would take a lot of time and trouble to "undertake" him, so Mr. Priest just hummed a little tune to himself, looked at the sky and pa.s.sed on.

Then came a Levite. He got down off his donkey and stepped over and looked at the poor fellow. Yes, he was breathing, but so near dead he probably would not last long, so why worry? So pa.s.sed on the Levite.

But next came along a man whom the priest and the Levite despised because he was a Samaritan. They regarded him as a very poor sort of a citizen.

But the Samaritan had a heart in him and he had a way of saying to himself when he saw anybody in distress: "Suppose I was in that fellow's fix, what would I like to have done for me?" When he asked himself that question on this occasion, the answer came quick and strong: "Get down and help him all you can; yes, your business is urgent, too, but here is a fellow-man in hard luck and you've got the stuff to help with!"

That is the way the heart of a good sport talks back to a fellow, and a good sport listens when his heart speaks, and a good sport acts quickly. So the Samaritan got down off his donkey and ran to the man, felt his pulse, spoke to him, loosened his shirt and looked into that ugly wound all bleeding. Then back to his travelling sack and out with the oil and wine.

Pouring in the soothing and healing stuff, he doubtless said: "There now, old fellow, you're feeling better already; just keep steady a bit, and we'll get you out of this; a little water? yes, hold on a minute--" and down to the trickling stream he runs and brings a cool drink in his little leather cup.

Ah, it was fine to see that beaten man revive! He opened his eyes wide and looked the grat.i.tude he was not yet able to speak. Soon the Samaritan got the whole story of the attack, listening with sympathetic indignation as the wounded man told how it happened, how he was taken by surprise by those cowardly ruffians, stripped, robbed, and beaten into insensibility. Directly he was trying to raise up on his elbow, and the Samaritan said:

"Now you just put your arm around my neck and hold steady while I lift. That's it, get your weight on your right foot, lean forward, and I'll get you atop this beast. Ah! that's the stuff, you're getting stronger every minute--now steady just a moment, let me pick up that oil bottle--all right--Get up! Bess--steady, girl, keep your hoofs in the path, and we'll make it fine. There, that's the movement.

"The inn is only a mile down the road now, friend, and there is food and a good bed awaiting you--oh, well, that's all right about your money being taken, I'll take care of that. The innkeeper and I are good friends, and likely with the good treatment you'll get you will be on your way in a couple of days--"

And so they go, the donkey picking her way carefully over the rougher places under the restraining voice of her master, while the wounded man leans heavily upon his benefactor.

Then, you know the rest, fellows. That despised Samaritan saw the thing clean through. He did not leave "his neighbour" until he had spent a night with him at the inn and had an understanding next morning with the innkeeper as to his safekeeping until able to resume the journey.

And what did our Lord teach in that graphic story? Why, simply this: Anybody whom you can help is your neighbour. If there is a poor man at my door needing something I can give, he is my neighbour. Or, if there is a rich Chinaman six thousand miles across the seas, needing the spiritual help I can send him through my prayers, my gifts, or my personal attention--he is my neighbour. Distance, short or long, is not the measure of neighbourhood; but need and my ability to help are the tests which determine how near by is my brother man.

The Boy Scouts have a fine motto: "Do a Good Turn Daily." There is just one better--"Do a Good Turn Whenever You Can," and that is loving your neighbour.

_Read Luke 10:25-37._

XI

FEASTING

Say, fellows, a man raised a gla.s.s of water to his mouth to take a drink; some one pa.s.sing struck his elbow, and--! Now an interesting thing has happened: each one of you fellows got a picture, complete in all details, to a climax. Yet there was no real picture; it was all in your imagination, spurred by twenty-one simple words. And it was a _moving picture_, too, and it went away past the word-spurs, because you painted the balance of it yourselves like a flash. You saw the gla.s.s fall and smash on the floor, and you saw the water spatter the man's feet and trousers--then some of you saw him jump back and look up quick and kind of mad like at the person pa.s.sing, and maybe say something rough.

Well, that's a wonderful machine you've got there, fellows; anything that can make a moving picture out of a thin line of material like that--a really for-the-moment interesting picture, with all the finishing touches--has a most valuable and useful outfit. Now Jesus knew His hearers had outfits of that wonderful kind, so in speaking to them He helped them draw pictures which would enable them to see some very interesting and startling things--things which they needed to know worse than a dying man needs a doctor.

Most of the pictures which He drew in this way were to show what the kingdom of heaven is like. Men in those days, just as nowadays, were walking around b.u.mping right up against the kingdom of heaven without knowing it. So Jesus drew pictures to help them see this wonderful kingdom, in order that they might not only become glad citizens of it but also to escape an awful fate.

The picture I want to present is of a great and rich king who was also both good and generous, making a marriage feast for his son and inviting a large number of guests.

Now, fellows, use your fine imagination again. You saw the king's surprise when the first servants reported; you saw him knit his brows (like this) and stand silently thinking a moment before deciding to send a second word; but can you imagine his astonishment a little later, when two of that second squad came running in, all breathless, and told him that though they fully explained the magnificence of the wedding supper, some turned upon their heels with a flimsy excuse, others rudely laughed outright in the messengers' faces, and--oh, the horror of it!--still others actually stoned and beat some of the messengers to death!--and their bodies were even at that moment lying in the street, being licked by dogs.

I say, can you see the king now? I think you can, for you have heard what he did. Yes, his servants went out again to those same people, but this time with swords and spears and fire, a terrible army of them, marching to the dread drum-beat of judgment, "and destroyed those murderers and burned up their city."

Yes, fellows, I know what you are saying. You are saying, "Well, I don't see how anybody could be as big a fool as that!" And yet, do you know that people are just as foolish to-day? Jesus told that parable to help us, too. The kingdom of heaven is just as close to you and to me; the greatest King of all--that's Jesus--is inviting boys and men to come in to the feast of usefulness and happiness and joy of an out-and-out Christian life, a feast which He has Himself prepared, and some are turning their backs upon His call, unwilling to take the King's own word for it that they will have the time of their lives, which will grow sweeter and finer and better as the days go by, and never, never end!

I tell you, fellows, there's n.o.body who can make a feast like Jesus; things taste even a lot better than they look on the card, for He always gives more than He promises. Don't _you_ make the mistake of turning down His invitation. It would be a tragedy. Let's answer His gracious call to-day like this:

"I'll go where you want me to go, dear Lord, Over mountain or plain or sea; I'll say what you want me to say, dear Lord; I'll be what you want me to be."

_Read Matthew 22:1-10._